Elgg vs the LMS

Web 2.0 vs the LMS

Web 2.0 is increasingly making the use of Learning Management Systems anachronistic. Blackboard, which has taken over WebCT has been granted a patent for a whole whack of LMS functions, as Harold Jarche lists in his post quoted from and linked below.

From Harold Jarche's Blog -

I think that it’s important to consider that these kinds of functions can be found not just in LMS but also LCMS and even some non-traditional online learning systems. Is there an online learning system, proprietary or open source, that does not include ANY of these functions?

Update: On reviewing these 44 items, I would say that Elgg Learning Landscape does not use any of these. So, I guess that makes your decision easy. Choose Elgg if you want a lawsuit-free learning system ;-)

Harold Jarche » Blackboard Sues D2L over LMS Patent

Who Needs LMSs?

I believe that this is the corporate system about to topple from its own weight. I teach using an Elgg Community blog and a course wiki. I used to use WebCT. I prefer the blog and wiki as teaching tools; they're simpler to use, much, much cheaper, and students learn how to use software they might encounter again in their futures. The only thing I miss from a LMS is being able to post the students' marks securely, and I assume something that will be developed sometime soon. Till then, I can make do with some old-style approaches.

I challenge the LMS researchers to find out how many of the possibilities available in their systems are actually used by how many teachers. I suspect many courses are shells, easily replaceable by community blogs (even on Blogger) and wikis, which can be made private. So only the student mark tracking is missing, and why pay thousands for that?

Elgg Plus

Take a look at the OpenAcademic site, as described by Elgg's Dave Tosh to see a completely different social and economic ethos, where time and effort goes into improving the learning and teacher experience, not into lawsuits.

technorati tags:Elgg, Jarche, LMS

Blogged with Flock